Table 2: Pre- and post-intervention standardized measurement scores for the overall study sample.
| Concepts, Measures | Score range | Mean (SD) | Median | P-value | |
| Expression of feelings | |||||
| MSE§ | Pre-test | 3-9 | 6.43 (1.40) | 6.00 | |
| Post-test | 4-9 | 6.67 (1.03) | 7.00 | 0.705 | |
| Meaningfulness | Day1 | 4-8 | 6.29 (1.60) | 7.00 | |
| of the log‡ | Day2 | 3-9 | 5.71 (2.06) | 5.00 | |
| Day3 | 5-9 | 7.14 (1.57) | 8.00 | ||
| Day4 | 6-10 | 8.00 (1.29) | 8.00 | 0.026§§,* | |
| Self-care | |||||
| APSF-S§ | Pre-test | 1-3 | 1.75 (0.71) | 2.00 | |
| Post-test | 1-3 | 1.88 (0.64) | 2.00 | 0.564 | |
| Weekday time§ | Pre-test | 0-120 | 78.33 (49.97) | 90.00 | |
| Post-test | 30-240 | 76.25 (67.18) | 60.00 | 1.000 | |
| Weekend time§ | Pre-test | 0-360 | 110.00 (103.34) | 90.00 | |
| Post-test | 0-360 | 157.50 (106.07) | 120.00 | 0.066† | |
| Caregiving burden | |||||
| J-ZBI†† | Pre-test | 10-73 | 48.50 (20.51) | 49.00 | |
| Post-test | 2-73 | 39.75 (25.45) | 45.50 | 0.063† | |
| Gender pressure | |||||
| SESRA-S§ | Pre-test | 57-62 | 60.13 (1.96) | 60.50 | |
| Post-test | 57-71 | 62.13 (6.06) | 58.50 | 0.498 | |
| Depressed mood | |||||
| CES-D† | Pre-test | 3-40 | 17.38 (11.43) | 14.50 | |
| Post-test | 4-49 | 17.50 (14.31) | 15.00 | 0.833 | |
| Role acceptance | |||||
| RAS§ | Pre-test | 15-30 | 23.88 (5.00) | 24.00 | |
| Post-test | 11-32 | 24.13 (7.24) | 25.00 | 0.892 | |
N = 8. APSF-S: Actual Private Space Function Scale from Tomari and Yoshida (2004) [24]; CES-D: Center for Epidemiologic Studies-Depression Scale from Shima, Shikano, Kitamura, and Asai (1985) [31]; Expression of feelings: express the oppressed feelings or demands; Gender pressure: Japanese gender role pressure; J-ZBI: Japanese Zarit Burden Interview from Arai, et al. (1997) [29]; Meaningfulness of the log from the log writing exercise from Pennebaker (2004) [24], which was measured after the caregiver completed the writing log for each 4 days. There was one missing value as a caregiver did not complete the writing log at the planned interval; MSE: Measure of Self Expression from Shimada and Satoh (1999) [27]; RAS: Role Acceptance Scale from Mikawa (2004) [32]; SESRA-S: Scale of Egalitarian Sex Role Attitudes-short version from Suzuki (2004) [30]; Weekday time: self-care time (minutes) on weekdays; Weekend time: self-care time (minutes) during the weekends.
SD: Standard Deviation. §A higher score indicates improvement. †A lower score indicates improvement. ‡A score above 5 indicates improvement.
The Wilcoxon signed-rank test (two-tailed) was used to evaluate the differences between pre- and post-intervention scores. §§Meaningfulness of the log was evaluated the differences between the Day 1 and 4.
*P < 0.05, †P < 0.1.